


Signifying Nothing

by AraSigyrn



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani knew Shakespeare, M/M, Nicky | Nicolo di Genoa Knew Shakespeare, Nicky | Nicolo di Genoa as the Fair Youth, Post-Canon, tumblr inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27237799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AraSigyrn/pseuds/AraSigyrn
Summary: Inspired by Wickedpact's Shakespearean meta.Nile's having problems hanging onto her copies of Shakespeare's sonnets.  Nicky explains why.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genoa
Comments: 37
Kudos: 393





	Signifying Nothing

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Wickedpact's Shakespearean Meta](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/706087) by Wickedpact. 



Nile doesn't realise until they're back in the safehouse in Gibraltar and her sixth copy of Shakespeare's sonnets disappears from the window sill where she's _sure_ she left it. They're unofficially on vacation after three brutal back-to-back missions. Nile's not in the mood to listen to music and all of the TV shows and films remind her too sharply that her mom and her brother are still out there. 

Shakespeare had been her dad's thing. He'd won an English competition in his last year of high school and the prize of a complete edition of Shakespeare. It had gone to boot camp with him. Nile's mom has dozens of letters with quotes written at the bottom of the page. It was a quiet code; a way to tell her mom how he was feeling without compromising op-sec. Nile has soft-edged memories of her dad sitting at the bottom of her bed and the sound of his voice reciting sonnets. He hadn't even needed to read them; he'd had most of them memorized.

Nile had been reminded of her dad when Dizzy showed her a video of Sir Patrick Stewart reading one of the sonnets. Then she'd died. Lost her family. Found a new one. Thwarted an evil corporation. Did her best to make the world just a little bit better. She'd found a dog-eared paperback abandoned in the motel in Ontario and reading the sonnets, she'd heard the faint echo of her dad's voice. She stuck the book in her bag but it hadn't been there when she went looking two days later.

It had planted the seed and she'd gone looking in a small second-hand book shop in Moscow. That one had been lost when they had to evacuate the safehouse that wasn't safe at all. That mission had been rough and they'd wound up drifting through Paris, part of the unspoken compromise the others seem to have reached over Booker. They don't reach out to him but after two hundred years, they don't need to reach out to know where he's going to be. Nobody talks about it but Nile followed Nicky and Andy through the crowds of Paris's nighttime traffic half a dozen times. She didn't see Booker the first two times because she wasn't looking for him. She saw him on the third 'random' walk and understands.

"He's still family," Andy said once they're home and Nicky had disappeared to find Joe. "He's still paying for what he did but he's still family."

"I get that," Nile said because she does. She didn't get it in London when she was sitting at that table but she's had the nightmares, seen the brittle terror that the others wrestle with every night in the days since. "Why not Joe?"

"Joe's still pissed," Andy told her. "So's Nicky, don't get me wrong, but Nicky always prefers to know where the threat is."

"And you?"

"He's family," Andy said. "Get old enough and holding onto your anger gets...pointless. There's enough shit out there to get angry about without wasting it on stupidity."

She took a bottle from the kitchen and left Nile to sit at the kitchen table. She could hear the traffic, some French jerk yelling at someone on the phone and Joe and Nicky's voices in the other room. Nile made herself some tea and went looking for her book. She couldn't find it. She'd been planning to get yet another copy but Copley had called at 6 am and Nile ended up leaving it behind.

She'd bought the latest copy in the airport. Andy _hates_ flying commercial but it's easier to disappear in a crowd, Copley says. Nicky has no opinion and Joe is hovering protectively, willing to do whatever it takes to get them somewhere safe. Their last mission had stranded Nicky in overwatch for nearly three straight days and he still hasn't put the weight back on. Not for lack of Joe feeding him, Nile notices with a smile.

They've spent the last two days sleeping and eating and not much else. There's just no damn way Nile could have lost _another_ book! She hasn't even left the fucking house!

"Is something wrong?" Nicky's accent is sleep-thick and his hair still rumpled from sleep. The t-shirt he's wearing is old and stretched out at the collar and he looks unfairly adorable in the morning light. "Nile?"

"I can't find my book," Nile winces when her voice comes out in a whine.

"The one you read yesterday?" Nicky turns to look at the chair by the window. 

"Yeah," Nile shakes her head. "I'm starting to think I'm cursed or something. This is like the sixth copy I've lost!"

Nicky pauses. "I did not ask. What was the title of your book?"

"Shakespeare's sonnets," Nile says and Nicky groans. "It was just a cheap one. I just..."

"Is fine," Nicky pinches the bridge of his nose and waves off her explanation. "Yusuf? My love?"

Joe comes out of their bedroom, scratching a hand through his curls. "Hayati?"

Nicky folds his arms and fixes his husband with a piercing stare. "Nile has misplaced her book."

Joe rubs at his face and blinks at Nicky. He makes a questioning sort of grumble that might be Arabic or might be Italian.

"Her book of Shakespeare's sonnets," Nicky clarifies, eyes narrowing. Joe winces and puffs up a little at the same time. Nicky plants both hands on his hips and glares at Joe. "You!"

Nile doesn't understand most of what Nicky says next. She's been with them long enough to pick up a smattering of Italian and she knew a few choice Arabic phrases from kicking around the sandbox. Joe and Nicky don't usually speak either. They have their own language that's mostly a blend of the two. Even Andy doesn't understand most of it. She says Nile'll pick up the important bits in a decade or two. Nile's got her doubts about that but she doesn't need to understand the words to know that they're having an argument.

Nicky honestly seems exasperated rather than furious but Joe is working himself up into a passion. It's not working, she doesn't think. Nicky's unimpressed expression doesn't change. He catches Nile's eyes, sighs and holds up a hand. "English, Joe, per favore."

"Fuck English!" Joe snaps then stops. He looks at Nile and deflates a little. "I am sorry, Nile. I am being rude."

"He does not like to use English when we are discussing Shakespeare," Nicky says, still watching him with that unimpressed expression.

"I do not like Shakespeare!" Joe huffs. "Or his stupid, ugly language."

He trails off into Arabic until Nicky raises an eyebrow at him. Nicky waits until Joe shuts up before he turns to Nile. "I am sorry, Nile. I did not know you liked Shakespeare or I would have talked to him already."

Joe opens his mouth and Nicky just looks at him. Joe closes his mouth. Nile feels a twinge; she remembers her mom looking at her dad like that. Nicky turns back to her. "Joe is going to go and fetch breakfast with Andy and I will explain."

Joe hrumphs but doesn't argue. Andy, who Nile hadn't even seen emerge from her room, smirks at him. She does look at Nicky who waves a hand at her. Andy tilts her head meaningfully at him. Nicky shakes his head and Andy rolls her eyes. She tugs Joe out and Nicky starts brewing coffee in the kitchen. Nile sits at the table and waits. Nicky isn't as chatty as Joe. He isn't shy exactly but he's careful with his words. He prefers to think about what he says before he says anything.

"So," Nile says as he sets a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. "Joe doesn't like Shakespeare."

"Joe does not like Shakespeare," Nicky agrees. "He would not have thrown away copies of the plays but he ...he really does not like the sonnets."

"Why?" It's such a random thing to dislike. Especially for Joe who is half a poet himself.

"Part of it is the timing." Nicky wraps his hands around his cup and breathes deeply. He's not looking at her; eyes fixed on the middle distance. "It was...we were in England. All four of us. Joe and I. Andy and..."

"Quỳnh," Nile finishes. Nicky's smile is brief and pained.

"There was much violence. The Tudor King had been a tyrant and religious wars are terrible things. Humans will do terrible things in the name of their God." Nicky breathes out. "We were trying to ...mitigate the damage. I don't know how well we succeeded but we stayed in London for many years."

"You met Shakespeare there," Nile guesses.

"Yes," Nicky says.

"Like, actual _Shakespeare_?"

"Yes."

Nile can't help herself. "So, like the Baconian conspiracy? That's bullshit, right?"

"The Baconian conspiracy?" Nicky looks lost so Nile has to explain the whole thing, pulling up Wikipedia to refresh her memory on the details and Nicky looks, just, _so_ disgusted. 

"No," he says very firmly. "William Shakespeare wrote those plays. Sometimes other people, friends mostly, helped but he was the author."

"Yes!" Nile punches the air. "Sorry."

Nicky looks a little bemused. "I am happy to be able to resolve it for you."

"Sorry, there was this guy in my Literature 201 class who was super into that theory and he'd never shut up about it."

"I have met students like that," Nicky nods. "We needed connections and theatre was not like films are today. It was a place where misfits thrived. And it was a place where Joe and I did not have to be careful, you understand?"

"You didn't have to pretend to be straight," Nile sips at her coffee. "Yeah, I get it."

"Si, si," Nicky says, gaze unfocusing. "Will was very talented. Not the most talented playwright but he was hardworking, consistent and that was very important. Audiences did not want the same thing, you understand?"

"No binging old favourites?"

"Sometimes," Nicky says. "Mostly what they wanted was novelty. The same old stories but with drama. A playwright had to write a great deal or their company would not keep them. Will worked harder than many who might have been considered more talented. His company was very illustrious. It played for the Queen at times. It was useful."

"Okay," Nile says. "Not seeing why Joe hated him for that."

"He did not hate him at all," Nicky says. "Not to start. Joe liked Burbadge better. Right from the start. He is more comfortable with performers than I. We would go to the tavern with them and talk for hours."

It's hard to imagine. Joe and Nicky are perfectly friendly but they're a closed system. There's room for Andy, a space where Booker could fit, a void for Quỳnh and the start of space for Nile but they're self-sufficient as a pair. Joe likes the company of other people but Nicky seems happy to just spend the time with Joe. Nicky describes sooty evenings in crowded taverns with bad beer and loud voices. Nile almost wants to take notes. Burbadge sounds like he was a party boy but Nicky describes Will as "more reserved. He was as wild underneath but more cautious in his approach."

"You must have known him pretty well," Nile says. Nicky sighs.

"I did," he says. "I was...not so cautious. It was getting to be rare, you know? To be able to be out in public with Joe. The views of the people were getting narrower and starting to judge other people. We had been in Russia before that. It was not done there."

Nile nods. She's learned a lot about queer history in the last two years and it's wild learning it from people who lived through it.

"I got into the habit," Nicky tips his head back, "of talking with Will. He was married, of course. That did not mean much then. She was back in the country where he was respectable. London was more liberal. I knew he took lovers. Women mostly but men too. It was what was done in those circles. I did not notice...I did not see his interest."

"So Joe hates him for having a crush on you?"

"Oh, no," Nicky shakes his head. "Joe does not hate anyone for admiring me. He laughed about it. Mostly at my overlooking it, really. But it was amusing to him."

"Joe's not the jealous type?" Nile has her doubts.

"Not like that," Nicky shakes his head. "He is mine and I am his."

It's not Joe's poetry but there's something almost as beautiful in Nicky's matter-of-fact words. As if it's just another fact of existence. The sun shines. Water is wet. Joe and Nicky.

"All our years," Nicky continues softly, "I have never wanted another. He knows that. He has faith in that. It was not Will's admiration that Joe objected to it, it was his persistence."

"Persistence?"

"He..." Nicky sighs. "Fidelity was not common among the theatre companies. Men, women, it did not matter. To make a living from theatre, one had to be scandalous and passionate. Sex was something that they did recklessly without a thought for others. Joe and I were loyal. Will was not respectful of that. He was not foolish enough to make a physical overture because Joe was never far from me."

"Wait." Nile puts her mug down and stares at Nicky who is looking uncomfortable. "Oh, no. No way. No fucking way."

Nicky's blushing, just a dusting of pink high on his cheeks.

"William motherfucking Shakespeare wrote his sonnets for _you_."

"Not all of them," Nicky says.

"You're the whatsit, the youth!" Nile claps her hands. "The Fair Youth!"

Nicky's bright red now, face in his hands. Nile stares at him. It's been a while since that Literature course but she remembers a few of the details. The TA had been this wild lady with bright pink and purple streaks in her hair who had a personal vendetta against the stuffy old guy interpretations. She'd talked a lot about what Shakespeare had been thinking when he wrote about the Fair Youth. She doesn't remember all the details. She can probably find the articles if she goes looking (and she's gonna, as soon as this conversation is over).

"It was not very original," Nicky says. "Joe has always been a poet. He paints as beautifully with his words as with his brushes. We were surrounded by writers, you see. So Joe wrote too."

"For you," Nile says. It's not a guess as such. Joe will spend an hour singing Nicky's praises if no-one interrupts. Nicky's smile is small but radiant.

"Si," he says. "We were having to spread out to do our work. Joe wrote me poetry to take with me so that I should never be alone even if he had to travel to Denmark or France."

"And Shakespeare copied him?"

"Si," Nicky shrugs. "I thought it was a joke. He was getting older. So were the others. He started to write sonnets to me. All the words he did not want to say to my face, I think. Joe did not think it was a joke."

"No, he wouldn't." Nile remembers having to read all like, a hundred of the sonnets that addressed the Fair Youth one after another and coming out feeling like Shakespeare was dealing with some serious repression around the guy. It was all 'marry and have kids!' one minute, then 'nobody will ever understand the depths of our love' the next. It's actually kind of hilarious to imagine Shakespeare pining after Nicky. Especially if Joe was _right there_.

"Will was competitive," Nicky says. "He would have grown bored of me as soon as he caught me, I think. He would have been bored eventually if I took no lovers at all. It pricked his pride to be passed over for Joe." Nicky shrugs his shoulders. "As if there was any insult in being less than Joe. My love is perfection."

"Oh, wow," Nile giggles. "Nicky, dude. I get that for you? That isn't an insult. Trust me when I say that for just about any guy out there? That totally is an insult."

"It is just the truth," Nicky insists. 

"So he wrote those sonnets for you and Joe got upset?" Nile asks and Nicky sobers.

"Yes," he says, "and no."

His smile fades and he closes his eyes for a second. He sets his untouched coffee aside.

"Will persisted," he says. "I have said that he was proud. The company became the King's Men when Elizabeth died. More prestige, more connections. Will had more money and more influence. He became insistent. He started trying to get me to drink more when we were in the tavern. He got drunk himself a time or two and took liberties he would not have dared if he were sober. He told me that he was mad for me, that if he had me, he could be sane again..."

"Ew." Nile says flatly. Nicky's small smile doesn't reach his eyes.

"Theatre folk," he says with another shrug. "It was all a performance, really. He made art from his so-called suffering."

"Did Joe punch him?" Nile asks. She can't imagine Joe letting anyone talk like that to Nicky. Not that Nicky can't handle himself, but she doesn't think that he punched Shakespeare either.

"No," Nicky says. "He wanted to challenge him to a duel but Andy said he should not. She told us to go away for a few decades, until Will had passed and we were forgotten. Joe got us on a ship to Egypt the day after that. We left. Three years later, Will was dead. Three years after that...Andy and Quỳnh were caught saving women from the Pendle madness..."

"And they put Quỳnh in that thing," Nile finishes.

Nicky nods, rubbing the heel of his hand into his eyes. "Joe and I, we blamed ourselves for not being there but Andy would not stand for it. She demanded that we not blame ourselves."

"So Joe blamed Shakespeare," Nile guesses and Nicky huffs.

"He could be angry at Will because Will could not be hurt by his anger," Nicky says simply. "He could not be angry with me. It is not in him. He could not be angry with himself because it would hurt me and he does not like me hurt."

"Oh." Nile looks down at her hands. Nicky rises from the table, topping off her coffee and putting his own, still untouched, cup on the counter. Nile bites her lip. When she looks up, Nicky is watching her calmly. "I...the reason I had the book at all was because of my dad."

The whole thing comes tumbling out. Nicky must have been a kickass priest, she thinks, because he's a perfect audience. He listens to her describe her dad and how his voice sounded. He smiles when she tells him about how her dad read Pan's closing speech to her the night before her first day of middle school on a telephone line that was mostly static. He listens and Nile doesn't realize that she's crying until Nicky brushes the tears away. She crumples into his arms and she cries. Nicky hums to her, doesn't tell her that it's all okay or that this is just how it is, the way Andy would have. He just lets her cry herself out and hugs her so she remembers that she's not alone.

"I will talk to Joe," is all he says when Nile's got herself back under control. "The shower is free if you want to use it. Andy and Joe will be back soon."

Nile hugs him again and takes that shower. The water is hot, the pressure is perfect and she looks at the neat line of different shower gels and body washes. She knows who owns what, just from looking. She's part of a family still and that's the part that she's going to hold onto, Nile decides.

When she comes out, dressed in her jeans and a loose t-shirt with a towel across her shoulders, Andy is on the couch with a pastry in her lap. Nicky and Joe are in the kitchen, mingled Italian and laughter spilling out into the apartment. The smell of fresh pastries and coffee fills the air.

And on the windowsill beside her chair, there's a brand-new copy of "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" with the price sticker still on the back.


End file.
